And now they were awaiting the reemergence of her and possibly Akane from the depths of the Pit. They felt that there was nothing more they could do except guard that opening. Though Uranus was all for leaping feet first into the Pit and duking it out with whatever was in there, that idea was nixed rather vehemently by those girls that had actually engaged in combat with the enigmatic Ranko. Two by two they took their turns gazing into the darkness.

"Nietzsche wasn’t kidding." Mercury murmured at one point during her shift gazing into the Pit. "If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."

"I don’t get it." Was Moon’s reply.

"It’s not really something that can be explained. But it basically means that the longer you try to stare down darkness, or evil, the more likely that it will find itself in you." Mercury explained. "However, I meant it in that I’m getting a rather unnerving feeling that something down there is watching me watching it."

But other than that odd incident, there was a pall of silence that laid heavily over the grove. Only one other time was it broken. A distant echoing mournful wait tore its way up to burst from the mouth of the Pit and dance upon the ears of all within the grove and the surrounding environs.

***********

Nothing had prepared them for what happened after that eerie wail. A tremble of the ground. Followed by a slight rumbling.

And suddenly just outside the confines of the grove there came a fiercely burning blast of energy dimly flickering about a single dark figure, illuminating the night sky with the brilliance of a new born sun.

***********

The Senshi made their way as quickly as they could to the place of that occurrence. They arrived just in time to witness the ascension of the Dark One from the depths of the Earth.

He arose on a swirling disk of pure ebony flame. A handsomely deadly vision of evil emerging from darkness into the light of the moon. And flinching not from that soft reflection of the fury of the sun.

His long hair flared out behind him in a loose fan. His scarred torso rippled with muscles under tanned flesh. The aristocratic beauty of his face was marred with blood trickling down from a split lip. A bruise was beginning to form high on his right cheek and a thin trickle of blood dribbled down his neck.

"Ranma!" Mars gasped in sudden shock. For the diabolical phantasm bore an uncanny resemblance to the long missing man.

"Here..." responded a weary voice from off to the side, near the edge of the small lake that filled the center of the park. "I’m here..."

The Senshi spun about almost as one, tearing their eyes from the vision that stood suspended over the gaping darkness of yet another Pit. There, some fifteen or more feet away, struggled to his feet the battered and bloody form of Saotome Ranma. His black A-line shirt was badly burned and his traditional black cotton pants were yet smoldering. The black leather slippers that had once adorned his feet had been completely destroyed in the blast that had hurled him through the ceiling of the cavern in which he had battled with his doppelganger a great depth within the Earth. However, he somehow managed to retain his unusually lengthy braid with only the barest about of singeing to the tied off tip.

As he finally managed to struggle to an upright position, he reached around, grasped his braid, and flicked it around to wrap about his neck. Then he stood there for a moment, as brilliant gold and scarlet flames swirled slowly up about his form. In response, the man over the Pit suddenly flared duskily in ebon flame.

"Raetheon! I’m not finished with you yet!" Ranma snarled from a face blackened with soot, bruises, and drying blood. Reaching out, he summoned his ki rod back to his hand. "I won’t forgive what you did to Akane!"

"Don’t you know when you’re defeated, foolish boy?" Raetheon asked, raising one thin eyebrow in question, even as he called his own ki rod to his hand.

"Saotome Ranma don’t accept defeat!" Ranma roared, leaping towards where Raetheon depended in midair.

Raetheon just sighed and switched his ki rod into its saber form. "Haven’t we already done this before?"

But Ranma wasn’t rehashing old plots. "Sakkidatta HA!" he screamed, channeling the force of his combination attack through his ki rod.

The ki rod worked rather effectively as an amplifying mean. It stored within its, suddenly, katana form the massive burst of energy that would have shot forth as multiple, though significantly weaker than otherwise, Moko Takabushi. As the force built higher and higher with in the emerald katana, it ran through the myriad pathways that were embedded in the katana during its creation. In effect, it worked not unlike a particle accelerator, though Ranma didn’t know that.

Thus, the seventeen to eighteen blasts that emerged from the tip of the katana were roughly the equivalent of an equal number of full powered energy balls.

Raetheon was not fazed in the least. Though he was mildly impressed by the number that Ranma had managed to get off in his direction. A wave of his verdant saber later, the brilliantly scarlet balls were veering off in various directions to diffuse rather harmlessly, though spectacularly, in the distance.

In response, he slashed his saber downwards, sending a sable bar of energy spinning rapidly in Ranma’s direction. At the last moment, Ranma managed to interpose his katana between his body and the bar and deflect it away. But only just barely, which resulted in the leading edge of the bar to smack quite squarely into Ranma’s chest and send him flying backwards several feet.

He slammed hard into the ground and skidded all the way back to where the Senshi were clustered about Moon in mutual confusion. Mars helped him to his feet.

"Ranma, what’s happening?" she whispered as she did so.

"That... that... bastard," he spat, filling the last word with disgust and loathing, "raped Akane!" Then he was back on his feet and rushing towards Raetheon again.

Mars wasn’t the only one who had heard Ranma’s cause for attack so viciously. Venus and Jupiter were beginning to look quite bloodthirsty, despite their multiple injuries, and Uranus was only barely being held back by Neptune, though the aquamarine tressed maiden looked as if she wanted a piece of Raetheon herself. But it wasn’t really their fight, and thus they needed permission from the person that they were supposed to be guarding.

Moon, for her part, was looking at them all in shock. "What? Why are you all standing around looking at me for?" she asked, tears in her eyes glistening momentarily before running down her face in thin rivulets. "You all heard what Ranma said that.. that creature did to Akane! She’s our friend! We can’t just sit back and do nothing!"

It was all the permission they needed. Jupiter rushed in and tackled Raetheon from behind, knocking him clear off of his ebon disk before rolling clear. Uranus struck next, slamming a raging Space Sword Blaster attack into the downed Raetheon. Then Neptune tried drowning him with a simpler attack, the Deep Submerge.

But Raetheon simply laughed when all was said and done. He stood to his feet and idly brushed the dirt from his pants. The ebony flames which had flickered about him still stood strong around his form. He smiled at the girls, flashing brilliantly white teeth in their direction.

"So, I see that Ranma’s little friends decided to help. How.. amusing." He chuckled in a rather droll tone. "It would figure that his allies would be nothing but useless women. How typical for a little boy."

While Raetheon was laughing and luxuriating in his self-assured male superiority complex, Ranma hadn’t been lying around. He had taken advantage of the distraction provided by the Senshi to sneak up behind Raetheon. Suddenly he reared up and smashed Raetheon across the back of the head with a anger generated ki-mallet courtesy of his ki-rod. His face was a furious snarl of pain and blood.

Raetheon smashed in the ground and skidded face first through the dirt for a good three feet from the force of the blow before finally stopping. He heaved himself upwards onto his hands and knees. Spitting out the mouthful of dirt and filth he had accumulated in his trip, he slowly twisted his head about until he was glaring at where Ranma stood breathing heavily, still gripping the mallet in both hands, though the head now rested upon the ground.

His face was marked with myriad cuts and abrasions. Mud caked his face were the soft loam of the Earth had mixed with his spilt blood. His hair was disheveled and wild, matted with blood and filth. His lips were peeled back from his teeth in a feral snarl as he glared at Ranma with his sparking onyx eyes. His teeth lengthened noticeably as Ranma watched into feline-like fangs and needle-sharp teeth. He looked remarkably demonic with the blood staining his sharp teeth from his lacerated tongue.

He stood abruptly. Moving with such grace and speed that it seemed as though he simply disappeared from the ground and reappeared crouching across the clearing from Ranma.

"I’m going to enjoy killing you for my Master, boy." Raetheon snarled. "By the time I’m finished with you, you’ll be begging for me to kill you and end your miserable existence." His voice was now rough as though he had been gargling with gravel and battery acid.

Ranma snorted as he lifted up the katana out of the mallet form and brought it about in a defensive stance, though he moved with an almost obvious weariness now. "Ya know, Ray. I can call you Ray, can’t I? Thanks. Well, ya know what, Ray? Lots of people have told me that at one point or another in this miserable existence of mine. Now, have any succeeded? Wait a sec, let me see..." Ranma looked about himself as if trying to figure out if he was dead. "Gee, it sure doesn’t look like it." Then his eyes were the gray blue of the finest sword-steel and just as deadly. "And I don’t plan on letting you be the first."

"You talk to much, boy!" Raetheon growled, leaping for Ranma with his saber outstretched.

The emerald blades met with a tremendous crash, verdant sparks flaring off to splash against trees, rocks, water, and Senshi. They sang their siren song as the twin opponents spun away in a neo-classical disengagement. The blades met again, Ranma twisting about in a desperate defense against an attack to his back from Raetheon.

Then the flaming rings of Mars’ Burning Mandela slammed into the fighters, striking Ranma and Raetheon equally. Ranma screamed in pain. Raetheon laughed.

"Thanks for the boost, wench!" he hooted back over his shoulder, as some of the injuries that had been occurred in the fight suddenly closed themselves from the influx of fiery energy.

"Dammit!" Mars could be heard to hiss in disgust off to the side were she had crouched for so long in preparation for her attack.

Ranma was limping now, and favoring his left arm, which had taken the brunt of Mars attack. Gold and scarlet flames flickered erratically around him. He was in obvious pain, and was dragging each breath in through teeth clenched against the agony. Yet, he clutched his katana in his hand still, and refused to give in.

Raetheon had reverted to quick darts of offense as a result to his renewed vigor. So far, Ranma had managed to ward off the flickers and tongues which lashed out at him with surprising force. However, he knew that that particular standoff would not last long.

And he was right. For at that moment, Raetheon flickered into his defenses and slashed across Ranma’s chest. Ranma flew back and fell upon the ground, groaning in pain as he curled slowly about the oozing gash that had opened in his chest.

The Senshi dared not attack Raetheon as he stalked forward to stand triumphantly over Ranma’s bloody form for fear of further harming their sometimes friend and ally. Raetheon chuckled evilly as he raised his saber above his head.

"And so it ends." He chortled, slowly bringing the blade down to align it over Ranma’s neck, then raising it again with the steady cadence of a ritual.

"You! Freeze!"

Two of the local police officers had come in response to the disturbance reported by neighbors of the small park. Now they stood on either side of Ranma and Raetheon. One to the front, one to the rear of Raetheon. Both had firearms, rare for Japan though somewhat necessary in Juuban because of the unusual circumstances there, and those firearms were trained on Raetheon.

"Peacekeepers? How... quaint." And then Raetheon moved. The saber flashed twice. Once forward into the chest of the man before him. Then reverse grip and back directly into the throat of the man to his rear.

The two fell into death’s grasp almost immediately. Only a groan and a liquid gurgle marked their passing as their suddenly lifeless bodies crumpled onto the ground. Moon gasped and reached ineffectively towards them as if to somehow halt their passing.

Then Raetheon turned back to his task at hand. Ranma’s imminent demise. He raised the saber above his head once more with a grim smirk upon his feature.

Then, just as the blade flashed downwards towards Ranma’s unprotected neck, something happened.

"NO!"

The shriek echoed through the silence of the night.

Then came a sudden blast of boiling water, lashing against Raetheon and driving him back away from Ranma.

Everyone looked around desperately for the source of that sudden blast of power so like a Senshi. What met their searching eyes was a startling sight.

For there crouched Akane, at the edge of the Pit just two feet from where Ranma lay. Her clothing was still ragged. Her skin was still bubbled and blistered from the heat of the coals she had laid upon. Her hair was still seared shorter than short. Ranma’s shirt was held wrapped about her torso with one trembling hand. Her other hand was outstretched towards Raetheon.

Her eyes though, were directed solely towards Ranma. Tears trickled from her eyes. She shook terribly, but she somehow managed to force herself to his side. Wrapping her arms around him, despite her shuddering, she held him to her.

"I won’t let you hurt him anymore." She whispered.

Raetheon looked for a moment as if he would take the two for one special that was offering itself, when suddenly Akane and Ranma burst into gold and scarlet flames so bright that it hurt to look upon them.

"Well." He snorted, stalking over to the edge of the pit. "It’s been fun, but it seems that it’s time for me to be going." With that, he leapt into the Pit.

A gout of flame leaping upwards from the Pit and an answering tower of fire from the grove echoed his vanishing act into the Pit. When the flames died away, a lava cap sealed the entrance to the Pit and it didn’t take much to figure out that they would find the same thing at the other Pit entrance.

Then the flames died away from Akane and Ranma. Somehow their positions had become reversed. Ranma now held Akane in his lap. Their wounds, at least the physical ones, had been healed, burned away by their fierce strength of the flames. Ranma looked up to see that Raetheon was gone and that the sun was just peeking over the horizon signaling the dawn of a new day.

Standing, he set Akane gently upon the ground and looked for the Senshi. Most were gathered across the clearing, watching their leader and princess. She was crouched were Raetheon had once stood, looking form one corpse to the other with tears in her eyes. She was reaching to both as if she could do something and gibbering faintly.

When she reached for her pendent though, something within Ranma snapped and he found himself for the first time furious at her. Striding over to her, he wrapped his hands around her upper arms with enough strength to leave bruises and hauled her to her feet. Then, letting go with one hand, he back handed her across the face. Hard. Jupiter leapt towards him with anger and hate written across her face, but the other’s held her back.

He shook her when his slap got no response. Her head flopped back and forth like a rag-doll, as she kept trying to look at the two fallen police officers.

"Goddammit, you stupid ditz! They’re _dead_! Don’t you get it?! Dead as in deceased! As in THEY ARE NOT COMING BACK!" Finally, he had got her attention, and she directed her tear stained face to meet his eyes. "Don’t you _get_ it?! This guy isn’t another one of your Goddamned little reborn enemies or whatever! This guy isn’t _stupid_! We are in a WAR here! This is a WAR! And in war people DIE! And when they die they DON’T COME BACK! This isn’t one of your stupid VIDEO GAMES! If someone dies you can’t drop a couple more yen in the slot and expect them to get back up! It doesn’t work that way! It just doesn’t work that way."

Then Ranma walked over to Akane and lifted her into his arms. "Come on, Akane. Let’s go home." She wrapped her arms about his neck to help him balance her weight as he leapt off in the early morning light.

Moon slowly sank to her knees in the center of the battlefield, her lower lip clenched between her teeth in an attempt to keep it from trembling. She chafed slowly at her upper arms trying to get the pain their to go away. A bright red handprint flared on her cheek. She looked slowly to where her Senshi clustered silently.

"Mars?" she whispered.

"He’s right." Was the only response she received as Mars leapt off after Ranma’s disappearing form.

"Jupiter?"

Jupiter just looked sadly at Moon’s pitiful form, having recovered from her blind rage, and limped off towards her home.

"Venus?"

Venus looked at Moon, opened her mouth as if to say something, then apparently decided against it as she shook her head. She turned and caught up with Jupiter, offering her support to the taller girl to help her home.

"Uranus? Neptune? Saturn?"

But the Outers had already left with the disappearance of Raetheon. Moon turned to the only one still standing with her.

"Mercury?"

Mercury swallowed slowly against the lump in her throat before speaking. "What do you want me to say? I’m your friend. We all are. But.. Ranma’s right. You’ve got to understand that." Then she allowed her transformation to fade away and slowly walked off to her home.

And Sailormoon, Champion of Love and Justice, was left alone in the center of what was left of a vicious battle between Light and Darkness.

***********

Sometime later, before the city had fully awoken yet, a swirling portal opened and out stepped the black and deepest green garbed Senshi of Time. Sailorpluto walked forward to where Moon lay upon the ground, apparently asleep. Crouching down beside her Princess, Pluto brushed away a stray lock of blonde hair from the sleeping girl’s face.

"I’m sorry you had to go through that, my future Queen. But, I had no choice but to let it happen. I’m sorry." Then she bent down and scooped the slumbering princess into her arms. "For now, I shall make certain that you are found peacefully slumbering in your own bed."

And the Guardian of the Gates of Time and her dreaming burden slipped into the timestream. The Princess with her friend and protector.

***********

AUTHOR’S NOTES: So, what do you think? Too short, I know. Deal with it, I don’t have anything more to write on it. At least it’s not as fierce a cliffhanger as some of the one’s I’ve written. Anyone remember the end of Book One? Hmmm? ;D

Well, what did you think of the ending? Didn’t expect that from someone who’s a self-proclaimed Pluto-hater did you? No, I don’t plan on writing Pluto out to be the self-serving little bitch that most people write her as. Though, I will point out that there are quite a few instances in which she is mentioned as being such within the context of the tale. And it makes sense. Because those mentions are from the perspective of a character, who may or may not care for how Pluto deals with things. Besides, I hate the cats worse. (No particular reason, I just have a wild aversion to Luna and Artemis and at times Diana. Gee, maybe it’s cause Artemis is a FEMALE moon GODDESS??)

Yes, there will be more. I will force myself to finish this thing, don’t worry.

Goddess in Heaven, I’m only about halfway done! *beats head on desk*